Evaluating the Effectiveness of the Compose and Code Model for Improving Students’ Computational Thinking and Computing Attitudes

• In Event: Fostering Students' Computational Thinking and Computational Literacy

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to report on the effectiveness of a newly developed digital platform called Compose and Code (CoCo) and its accompanying lessons for improving students’ computational thinking and interest in coding. CoCo is a digital learning platform that embeds self-regulated learning strategies and Universal Design for Learning supports (including a graphic organizer, audio comments, video models, and text-to-speech) to help scaffold written composition and computational thinking (CT), and ultimately guide students to code creative projects from their writing using Scratch. CoCo was specifically developed to support students of all abilities in learning to code and think computationally.

Authors

• Amy C. Hutchison, University of Alabama

• Qi Si, University of Alabama

• Erdogan Kaya, George Mason University

• Jamie Colwell, Old Dominion University

• Kristie S. Gutierrez, Old Dominion University

• Anya S. Evmenova, George Mason University

• Kelley S. Regan, George Mason University